Technology

• PlayStation 5 exclusive Silent Hill: The Short Message is getting a physical disc release
• It's only available as part of a pricey deluxe version with some bonus physical items
• The game is available completely for free digitally

An incredibly short, free Silent Hill spinoff is inexplicably getting a pricey physical release in a new collaboration between publisher Konami and distributor Limited Run Games.

A listing for a physical PlayStation 5 version of Silent Hill: The Short Message has appeared on the Limited Run website, offering fans the chance to get their hands on a disc copy of the game for the very first time.

The PS5 exclusive title, which only takes about two hours to beat, was first released digitally back in 2024 and is completely free to own on the console. If you haven't got your hands on it yet, you can add it to your library in just a few clicks via the PlayStation Store.

Given the fact that anyone can claim the full game at no cost, you might assume that this upcoming physical version would be quite cheap, but that is not the case. It's priced at a full $69.99 (roughly £52 / AU$101), the same as recent major first-party PS5 releases like Ghost of Yotei or Astro Bot.

(Image credit: Limited Run Games / Konami)

To be fair, it is only being sold as part of a special limited edition deluxe version that throws in some additional physical goodies (a collector's box, art poster, flower keychain, set of art cards, and certificate of authenticity), but this still seems like a pretty steep price for a title previously valued at, well, nothing.

Silent Hill: The Short Message is an entirely standalone experience set in a fictional German town. It follows a young girl who explores an abandoned apartment building while being pursued by an unsettling, cherry blossom-themed monster.

Despite being completely free, it didn't receive the best reviews when it launched with a Metacritic score of just 52 out of 100. Common complaints from critics were directed towards its clumsy handling of serious topics like suicide and self-harm.

If you are a massive Silent Hill collector and do really want to get your hands on the physical version, it will become available to pre-order on July 10, with shipping expected to begin early next year.

Finding the perfect budget laptop for college or university can be a tricky task. You want something that won't break the bank, but will be a great studying companion that won't let you down. At TechRadar, we've tested hundreds of laptops; this guide runs through our top affordable recommendations for college or university students.

I've focused on options that deliver strong bang for your buck, and can handle an average student's day-to-day typing, research and entertainment needs. Most offer generous battery life, so you can move about without having to worry about staying near a power outlet, and are pleasingly compact and portable too. Note, these are all affordable, relatively basic options and as a result, they're not suitable for demanding tasks — head to our general best laptop or best student laptop guides for a wider range of options for more intensive needs.

Scroll down for our top recommendations. Hit the View Details button to find out more about each one and why it's a great choice for students specifically, or hop to the bottom for a specs comparison table.

College champions Acer Chromebook Spin 312

Why's it good for students? The Acer Chromebook Spin 312 has a lot going for it: it's nice and portable, with strong build quality, a sharp screen and the longest battery life of any model featured here, bar the much pricier MacBook Neo. As you'd expect for its affordable price, it's not capable of intensive computing tasks, but it'll have no issues with light work and entertainment, and the flippable touchscreen adds versatility.

Read our full review

Acer Chromebook Plus 514

Why's it good for students? This budget-friendly laptop delivers speedy performance, decent battery and an impressive screen for a very affordable price. For regular computing needs, it'll more than fit the bill.

Read the full review

Pros

• Great performance
• Excellent display
• Practical port selection

Cons

• Keyboard isn’t the most premium
• No SD card slot
• Can get a little noisy

Apple MacBook Neo

Why's it good for students? Although less strong value for money following the recent price rises, if you're wedded to Apple, the Neo is your best affordable option. It delivers full macOS, and offers the best battery life and most storage of any laptop in this list. The build quality is solid, and it looks great too.

Read our full review

Pros

• Strong value for money
• Fantastic build quality
• Full macOS experience

Cons

• No keyboard backlight
• USB 2 port feels a bit silly in 2026
• 8GB of memory could become frustrating

HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch

Why's it good for students? This wallet-friendly Chromebook punches above its affordable price tag, with a surprisingly premium feel and useful touchscreen. It delivers long battery life and solid productivity performance for regular computing needs.

Read the full review

Acer Chromebook Plus 516

Why's it good for students? We were impressed with this ultra-large Chromebook's "vibrant and sharp display and great performance". You're sacrificing portability for that bigger size, though, and the battery life is somewhat limited (the shortest of any laptop listed here). However, if those compromises are acceptable, this is a wallet-friendly and high-performing option.

Read our full review

Pros

• Large and sharp display
• Versatile and satisfying keyboard
• Above-average Chromebook performance

Cons

• Might be too large for some
• Both USB-C ports on same side
• Middling battery life

Asus Chromebook CM14

Why's it good for students? This one is great if you're on a tight budget and just want something you can type on, and which won't run out of battery halfway through the day. The screen can lie completely flat and Asus promises 'military-grade durability'. Beware, though, this cheap Chromebook isn't good at multitasking.

Read our full review

Cheap college laptops: specs compared

• Google has sent out invites for an event on August 12
• It says we'll see “the next generation of Pixel” there
• We expect the brand to launch the Pixel 11 series and the Pixel Watch 5, along with some price rises

It’s official — the Google Pixel 11 series will be launching on August 12, as Google has started sending out invites for an event on that date, promising to unveil “the next generation of Pixel.”

The launch starts at 3pm PT / 6pm ET / 11pm BST, which is 8am on August 13 for those in Australia’s AEST time zone. The event will be held in New York, but we fully expect it to be streamed online too.

But what will Google actually unveil? Well, while no specific models were mentioned in the invite, we have a very good idea of what to expect.

1. The Google Pixel 11

The Google Pixel 10 (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

The Google Pixel 11 itself will almost certainly be announced at this event, with this phone rumored to have a new ‘Pixel Glow’ feature, which could take the form of colored lights on the back that can alert you to notifications.

Beyond that, the design might be similar to the Google Pixel 10’s, but there are sure to be changes to specs, with leaks pointing to a new Tensor G6 chipset, a new 50MP camera, and a new M16 OLED panel, which could improve the quality of the screen.

That might be about it for notable upgrades — though some new colors are likely to be offered too — so the Pixel Glow feature could be the standout change.

2. The Google Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL

The Google Pixel 10 Pro XL and Pixel 10 Pro (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

Alongside the vanilla Pixel 11, Google will almost certainly launch the Pixel 11 Pro and the Pixel 11 Pro XL.

These phones should have many of the same upgrades — including Pixel Glow, a Tensor G6 chipset, and an M16 screen. But additionally, we’re hearing that they could also get two new camera sensors, and possibly a boost in charging power for the Pixel 11 Pro, bringing it up to 45W, in line with the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL (and likely the Pixel 11 Pro XL).

Less promisingly, there might be both 12GB and 16GB models of these phones, where the Google Pixel 10 Pro series came with 16GB of RAM as standard. But this might be necessary to keep the starting prices palatable in the face of rising RAM prices.

3. The Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold

The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

We’re also expecting a new foldable phone, in the form of the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold. And this phone, as with the rest of the Pixel 11 line, will probably have a new Tensor G6 chipset and an M16 screen, though it’s unclear whether it will get the Pixel Glow feature rumored for the rest of the line.

What it might get, though, is a removable battery — but while this feature has been quite widely reported, the only evidence for it seems to be a patent, so we wouldn’t count on it, since patents often don’t turn into anything.

Beyond all that, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold could be similar to last year’s model, with the same screen sizes and a similar battery capacity, but we’ll know for sure soon.

4. The Google Pixel Watch 5

The Google Pixel Watch 4 (Image credit: Blue Pixl Media)

It’s not just phones we’ll see on August 12, as we’re also expecting to see the Google Pixel Watch 5.

Key rumored upgrades here include a Tensor chipset in place of its predecessor’s Snapdragon one, a brighter screen, smaller bezels, and potentially better battery life — though the latter will probably come as a result of optimizations rather than a higher capacity battery.

Some new AI and fitness tracking features may also be offered, but it’s likely that the Pixel Watch 5 will largely retain its predecessor’s design, so expect a circular screen and both 41mm and 45mm sizes.

5. Higher prices

The Google Pixel 10 Pro (Image credit: Future)

That’s probably all of the products we’ll see at Google's upcoming event, but one other notable element could be their prices, as unfortunately, they may well be higher than we’ve seen from current models.

According to Dealabs, all four Pixel 11 series models will start at €100 more than their predecessors in Europe. Now, in the case of the Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro, Google is apparently doing away with the 128GB starting capacity of their predecessors and starting them at 256GB of storage instead, with this new price being the same as what you’d already pay for a 256GB model of those phones.

So, in other words, the price of a 256GB model might be the same as last year; you just apparently won’t have the option to get a cheaper 128GB one.

But for the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL and the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold, that €100 price increase isn’t offset by a storage bump, with these phones reportedly starting at 256GB, just like their predecessors.

So, what will that mean in other regions? Well, if this information is accurate, then it likely means an $899 / £899 / AU$1,499 starting price for the Pixel 11 and a $999 / £999 / AU$1,699 starting price for the Pixel 11 Pro, since that’s what their 256GB predecessors launched at.

For the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL and Pixel 11 Pro Fold, we have to take more of a guess, but based on how Google tends to adjust its pricing for different configurations, it could mean a starting price of $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,149 for the former and $1,899 / £1,849 / AU$2,849 for the latter — which would be $100 / £100 / AU$150 more than their predecessors.

The UK’s ambition to become a global AI leader depends on one fundamental question, who controls the data that powers innovation?

Trust in AI starts with trust in data. At the same time, this is reflected as hyperscale cloud providers continue to see strong growth in UK services, despite rising concerns over how much UK data is ultimately governed by overseas firms.

This tension highlights a critical turning point for enterprise AI adoption as organizations want the scale and innovation of cloud platforms, but increasingly demand sovereignty, transparency, and control over their data.

As AI becomes embedded in critical business processes, from customer service and finance to healthcare and public sector operations, data sovereignty is no longer a compliance checkbox. It is becoming a core architectural principle to data structures.

Sovereign data enables trustworthy AI

Modern AI systems are only as trustworthy as the data pipelines that feed them. Enterprises deploying large language models, AI agents, and automated decision systems must have clear visibility into where data resides, who governs it, and how it is accessed across the full lifecycle, ingestion, training, inference, and retention.

Without sovereign controls, organizations risk exposing sensitive information to foreign jurisdictions, conflicting regulatory regimes, and opaque third-party access. This becomes especially problematic when AI models are trained or fine-tuned on proprietary datasets, or when agents interact with internal systems in real time.

Sovereign data frameworks provide the foundation for trustworthy AI by enforcing locality, auditability, and policy-based access controls. They enable enterprises to ensure that sensitive datasets remain within UK borders or trusted jurisdictions, aligned with domestic regulations such as GDPR and evolving AI governance standards.

More importantly, they give organizations technical assurance that data ownership remains with the enterprise, not the platform.

This level of control is essential as AI transitions from experimental deployments to mission-critical infrastructure, but data sovereignty is only part of the conversation.

Digital sovereignty is about having the freedom to shape your own digital future, not just where data is stored, but who controls the platforms and AI systems that underpin economies. Businesses need the ability to make those choices on their own terms and balance security, innovation and economic opportunities in a way that reflect their own priorities.

Less data, better outcomes

A second pillar of sovereign AI is data minimization. Contrary to popular belief, effective AI does not require unrestricted access to everything.

Agent-based systems and enterprise AI platforms perform best with data-privacy in mind when they operate on the minimum data required to complete a task.

By restricting context windows, enforcing role-based permissions, and limiting retrieval scopes, organizations can significantly reduce risk of data exposure while often improving model accuracy and relevance.

Over-permissioned AI agents introduce unnecessary risk, such as, broader data access increases the attack surface, amplifies the impact of misconfigurations, and complicates compliance audits. Sovereign architectures encourage a “least privilege” approach, where agents are granted tightly secure access to specific datasets, APIs, or workflows.

This technical discipline delivers tangible benefits. Smaller data contexts reduce hallucinations, improve response quality, and make AI behavior more predictable and therefore accurate. At the same time, minimized data flows simplify governance and lower the likelihood of cross-border leakage.

Control the context, protect sovereignty

Enterprise AI is fundamentally different from consumer AI. While public models optimize for breadth, enterprise deployments require precision, accountability, and contextual control.

Sovereign data strategies allow organizations to define exactly what AI tools are allowed to see and act upon. This includes controlling retrieval-augmented generation pipelines, restricting tool usage, and enforcing jurisdictional boundaries on inference workloads.

When enterprises manage their own data stores, identity layers, and orchestration frameworks, they can keep sensitive information inside trusted environments while still benefiting from advanced AI capabilities.

Context control also enables safer automation. As AI agents increasingly initiate actions, updating records, triggering workflows, or interacting with customers, organizations must ensure that these systems operate only within approved data domains. Sovereignty provides the technical guardrails needed to prevent accidental exposure and maintain operational integrity.

Ultimately, AI works best when enterprises own both the data and the context.

Sovereignty drives vendor diversification and resilience

Increased demand for sovereign platforms is driving investment into local data centers and UK-based infrastructure, while also encouraging greater vendor diversification. Rather than relying exclusively on a small number of global hyperscalers, organizations are beginning to adopt hybrid and multi-provider architectures that include regional cloud providers and sovereign platforms.

This shift reduces systemic risk. Over-reliance on a handful of hyperscalers creates concentration vulnerabilities, pricing pressures, and strategic dependency. Diversification improves resilience, increases competitive choice, and gives enterprises greater leverage over performance, compliance, and cost.

Importantly, sovereign platforms give organizations the confidence to adopt AI at scale, knowing their data remains under UK jurisdiction. This architectural freedom allows businesses to select best-of-breed AI tools while retaining control over where computation and storage occur. The result is a healthier ecosystem, one that balances innovation with autonomy.

Building the UK’s AI future

Sovereign data represents a strategic opportunity for the UK. With the right policy frameworks and collaboration between government and businesses, this momentum could strengthen the country’s position as a competitive AI hub while reducing dependence on overseas providers.

Local infrastructure investment supports economic growth and job creation, while sovereign platforms empower organizations to deploy advanced AI without compromising digital autonomy.

The future of UK AI will not be defined solely by model performance or compute scale. It will be shaped by architecture choices, where data lives, how it is governed, and who ultimately controls it.

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“Tokenmaxxing” – the idea that AI coding success comes down to using as many tokens as possible – is an appealing metric.

Tokens are the fundamental unit that AI coding tools use to read, write, and reason. So on the surface, more tokens should mean more output, more productivity, and more impact.

But when we analyzed 12,000 developers across 200 companies, the data revealed that while more tokens do correlate with more output, they come at a significantly higher price per unit.

Some organizations are pushing software engineers to use as many tokens as possible, using leaderboards to promote the biggest AI users. But that’s not a sustainable strategy. CFOs are starting to push back on uncontrolled AI spending and asking coders to show receipts.

Leaders may be willing to spend money to move fast, but they can’t do it without proving their engineering teams are having an impact.

The best approach to “toxenmaxxing” isn’t to blindly push for AI adoption. Instead, the best path forward for companies is to push AI coding adoption more broadly, moving more engineers into the middle of the curve while avoiding both underuse and expensive overconsumption.

Why ‘tokenmaxxing’ doesn’t scale

We found that the top 10% of Claude Code users consumed about 10 times as many AI tokens as the median developer but produced only about twice the output. In other words, increasing token consumption does increase output, but not proportionally.

The research also shows a small but growing group of power users dominating total token consumption. At the 90th percentile, users are burning around 225M tokens per week, about 3x what they were using six months ago, and about 7x the median.

Many engineering leaders are now looking at their highest adopters and trying to figure out how to get the rest of the organization to the same level. That approach is misguided. With the cost per merged PR increasing from $0.28 at the lowest adoption tier to $89.32 at the highest, scaling extreme token usage simply cannot drive value.

Instead, engineering leaders should focus on smoothing the curve. Broad, moderate token consumption is far more cost effective than having a small group of power users at one end of the spectrum and everyone else lagging behind. When most of the organization is operating in the middle of the curve, AI becomes a durable advantage: enough to drive real productivity gains but not so much that engineering teams burn money chasing marginal output.

Maximize impact, not token consumption

The organizations that burn through the most tokens aren't necessarily getting the furthest with AI. When token consumption is high, most are spent on automating manual tasks with tools like Claude, Copilot or Cursor. Developers essentially have a better tool to do the same kind of work as they did before.

To really drive impact with AI, engineering organizations need to move towards new, truly agentic modes of working. However, agentic systems require major investments in IT infrastructure, including context engineering, orchestration, and sandboxed environments. Until organizations address these issues, the productivity gains will remain blocked by an "agentic barrier" that no amount of tokens can overcome.

How established enterprises can follow the AI-native lead

Conversations around AI and software development focus on coding, but writing code is just one part of an engineer's role. Taking a product to market also involves roadmap work, deployment, go-to-market enablement, and more. If engineers are spending tons of tokens on writing code as fast as possible, everything else needs to catch up.

Changing roadmap cadence and accelerating sales enablement requires major cultural shifts that many organizations aren't prepared for. As a result, extra cadences are often poured into the backlog or other things that may deliver value down the line but won't move the revenue needle in the short term. Teams can consume millions of tokens every week but have little to show for it by the end of the quarter.

AI-native companies are more likely to see an immediate return on their AI investments. While established enterprises may not be able to start from scratch, adopting AI-native principles can help remove bottlenecks and turn token spend into measurable business returns faster. By designing workflows with automation in mind, they can continue to accelerate coding without creating technical debt.

"Tokenmaxxing" is having a moment, but engineering leaders need to move beyond token count and start finding ways to prove value. By measuring how AI impacts delivery, quality, and productivity across the software delivery life cycle, leaders can demonstrate ROI and make sure every token counts.

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• Soundpeats Nebula Aura were teased in January 2026
• Since then, the brand has continued to run a blog about their development
• Fans look willing to sell a kidney to try them

Thanks to its roster of solid affordable earbuds, Soundpeats is a brand I always keep an eye on. Between the Soundpeats H3 three-driver in-ears, Soundpeats Clip1 open earbuds and Soundpeats Cove Pro over-ears, I'm always interested in what they've got up their sleeves.

After being given a glimpse up said sleeves in January 2026, when the brand teased some five-driver earbuds, we've been learning more and more over time. Through 2026, Soundpeats has been running a blog dedicated to the development of the buds.

We already knew a fair bit, for example about the five drivers: the 10mm dynamic driver is joined by a 6mm planar driver, two balanced armatures and a planar magnetic driver. The support for aptX Adaptive, LDAC and Snapdragon Sound was all also in the knowledge bank.

But the blog shines a light on some other elements of the bud, for example in the design department. One post discusses the charging case, and how it was designed to allow you to remove the buds in the same gesture as opening it. It's the stuff you don't think about when you're buying some buds online, and shows that the brand is putting care into its Nebula.

In another post, the brand details a transmitter that the Nebula will work alongside, allowing for 24-bit 96kHz audio playback from iPhones. That's right, the barren LDAC-less wasteland will finally be able to enjoy high-res music (Androiders can just use LDAC for this quality with the Nebula).

Fans can't wait

One other side-effect of publishing this blog, is that Soundpeats has managed to build plenty of organic excitement for the Aura Nebula. And I'm not just talking about how interested I personally am to try them.

A representative for Soundcore has been actively sharing the blog posts on Reddit, and they've seemingly amassed a dedicated audience of fans who want to test out the buds. There's also a Discord dedicated to the buds.

For example, in the r/Earbuds subreddit, a recent posted inspired a Q&A between one of the product's developers and excited fans dying to test the buds. And when I say "dying", I mean it: one interested party asking for updates said "this is painful". So, yes… fans are pretty keen.

Comment from r/Earbuds

In the Q&A, fans' main questions were about when the buds would be arriving — unfortunately they weren't given an answer, though TechRadar has today (Wednesday 8 July) reached out to the company and will update this article if we hear back.

But Soundpeats was very honest about other topics. For example, when asked about battery life, the representative confirmed that they didn't have a concrete battery estimate yet: "the exact battery life still needs to be tested and confirmed [... it's] one of the things I'm personally watching closely too".

Elsewhere, the developer shared more details about the buds: "55db hybrid ANC, transparency mode support, 3 microphones per earbud, AI call noise reduction, and Qualcomm cVc 8.0".

Comment from r/Earbuds

When one fan asked if the Aura Nebula would be top-end buds to compete with Sony, Bowers & Wilkin or Technics, the response admitted "in terms of overall product capabilities and brand influence, we aren't quite ready to be compared to those industry giants just yet". So they're staying humble, while also hinting at these buds wont be prohibitively expensive.

It's fascinating to see a brand like Soundpeats not just tease a product well before their launch, but be so open about their R&D process. It's creating interest in a way that press-release-in-inbox announcements don't, and making the brand seem more trustworthy than many peers. It's quite surprising that more brands don't do this kind of thing.

We were meant to see the Soundpeats release in Spring 2026, but obviously that didn't happen. The brand posted about pre-production prototypes in April, so hopefully we won't need to wait too long before the Aura Nebula gets released. I would worry for that Reddit poster if they're delayed much longer.

• UK data centers can apply for a special 'national significance' designation under the NSIP scheme
• The designation allows new projects to receive approval direct from Whitehall, avoiding local planning and building regulations
• Opposition to data centers in the UK has not reached the same levels as the US, which has seen billions of dollars worth of projects delayed due to local opposition

Data centers in the UK have been given the ability to apply for a ‘national importance’ status previously only reserved for critical infrastructure such as energy production, roads, railways, and sub sea cables.

The UK government has also scrapped the statutory requirement for pre-application consultation on Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) in legislation taking effect later this month, potentially cutting the processing time for applications by up to a year.

Projects approved for NSIP status are not subject to local building regulations and authorities, and are instead granted permission directly by the UK government. Data centers will therefore be able to apply for this same status with a reduced processing time.

What determines a NSIP?

For now, there is no official guidance on what determines a data center as a NSIP.

Speaking to The Register, Law firm Womble Bond Dickinson said, “Datacenters are not automatically consented as NSIPs; instead, the NSIP regime operates on an opt‑in basis for developers. A datacenter project may be directed into the NSIP regime where the Secretary of State considers it to be of national significance and satisfied that the statutory tests under section 35 of the Planning Act 2008 are met.”

The UK has long been poised to take advantage of new technologies, with regional cyber hubs popping up across the country in areas of technological significance for innovation, growth, and talent development - such as Cheltenham’s cyber hub strategically positioned near the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

The NSIP designation for data centers will likely fast-track the construction of ‘AI Growth Zones’ intended to accompany cyber hubs and bolster the UK’s sovereign AI capacity. That means that data center construction projects of ‘national importance’ will soon begin popping up across the UK.

The NSIP also provides prospective projects with pre-application advice to improve both the speed of their application and the chances of approval, with over 80 potential projects already having benefitted from this new advice.

As the ‘national importance’ status allows projects to bypass local planning and building regulations, it will also likely draw attention from local ‘not-in-my-backyard’ (NIMBY) groups. How effective the NSIP label will be at countering this local opposition remains to be seen.

The UK Local Government Association issued a response to the sustainability of data centers in the UK that stated, “Data centres and AI infrastructure cannot be planned in isolation from wider digital connectivity, energy, water, land use and climate systems. Councils must be treated as key partners in the design and delivery of national digital strategies, including AI Growth Zones, planning reform and infrastructure investment.”

What is the current attitude to data centers in the UK?

Opposition to UK data centers has not seen the same level of support as that in the US, but the UK has not been subject to the same mass-buildout of data center projects as in the US.

A YouGov / Cavendish Consulting Survey [PDF] of 2124 UK adults conducted in November 2025 found that the UK population broadly supports the construction of new data centers (69%), with 24% stating that they strongly support, and 45% stating they tend to support.

Opposition is significantly lower, with just 7% stating they tend to oppose data center projects, and only 3% strongly opposed.

The further trend to be analyzed is the 21% who gave ‘Don’t know’ as an answer, which highlights the lack of understanding around what a data center is, why they are built, and how they relate to AI technology.

This was further highlighted by a June 2026 survey conducted by SEC Newgate that found that 89% of UK adults were unfamiliar with data centers.

The US has seen opposition to data centers at both local and national levels, centered around the fear of AI-related job losses, environmental damage, and legitimate fears over local capacity constraints caused by the energy and water demands of enormous data center campuses.

How new UK data centers engage with local authorities and community groups will weigh heavily on the national opinion of data centers in the years to come, especially now that new projects can skirt local regulation via NSIP designation.

Via Tom’s Hardware

X-Men 97 season 2 episode 4 has landed on Disney+ — and, once you've picked up your jaw off the floor, I suspect you'll have two major questions about where things go from here.

So, if you're searching for answers after the Marvel TV show's latest chapter, titled 'Rise of Apocalypse: Part II', I'm here to provide them. Or, at least, give my take on what'll happen next following the episode's emotionally devastating finale and end-credits scene.

It goes without saying, but full spoilers immediately follow for X-Men 97 season 2's latest entry. Turn back now if you haven't watched it yet.

Does Magneto die in X-Men 97 season 2 episode 4?

Eriiiiikkkkkk! (Image credit: Marvel Animation/Disney+)

In a nutshell, yes. You don't take a extremely powerful arm-cannon blast to the chest — one that completely obliterates you, no less — from the immortal, super-mutant called Apocalypse and live to tell the tale.

That said, comic book character deaths are never permanent. Whether it's on the page, or in a movie or TV adaptation, superpowered beings are regularly brought back to life via time travel or multiverse shenanigans.

While Magneto certainly perished at the hands of Apocalypse in X-Men 97's latest installment, then, it's incredibly unlikely that he'll be gone for good. He's too popular and important a character to kill off, especially in this Disney+ animated series, so I'll be shocked if the metal-manipulating mutant who goes by the name Erik Magnus Lehnsherr never returns.

Now, who's going to tell Rogue that she's a second love interest in as many seasons...

Does X-Men 97 season 2 episode 4 have an end-credits scene?

Good to see you again, bub (Image credit: Marvel Animation/Disney+)

Yes — and it sets up the storyline that'll see James 'Logan' Howlett, aka Wolverine, get his adamantium skeleton back.

Remember, in season 1 episode 8 of this Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) adjacent project, Wolverine had the indestructible metal ripped from his body by Magneto. And, while Logan survived that ordeal thanks to his self-healing ability, he's since had to make do with using his brittle bone claws to attack his foes.

Logan won't have to do that for much longer, though. In a mid-credits scene, we see Wolverine meet Captain America and Black Widow on a rooftop. After some brief small-talk, Cap hands a top secret file to Logan that bears the name 'Weapon X'.

Weapon X will be incredibly familiar to X-Men diehards (Image credit: Marvel Animation/Disney+)

Long-time fans and/or those who've seen certain live-action X-Men films — by the way, find out how to watch the X-Men movies in order once you're done here — will understand the significance of this.

However, for those unfamiliar with Weapon X: essentially, it's the name of a clandestine US Government research facility and military program that turned unwilling individuals into living weapons with the view to conducting covert missions, such as assassinations. Wolverine, Deadpool, Sabretooth, and X-23 are counted among its rare success stories.

So, will Wolverine reacquire his adamantium skeleton in this Marvel Phase 6 TV series' next chapter? It's possible, especially as next week's entry is titled 'Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs'. But — spoilers for the comics notwithstanding — if X-Men 97 continues to follow and authentically adapt this specific storyline from its source material, this subplot might not be resolved until later in the season.

Do you think we'll see Magneto again? And when will Wolverine get his adamantium skeleton back? Let me know in the comments!

After almost 30 hours sailing the high seas in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, one of the series’ best games has its hooks in me all over again, and I can’t wait to play another 30 (or more) and complete every single activity a second time.

Review info

Platform reviewed: PS5 (on PS5 Pro)
Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Release date: July 9, 2026

Embarking on a journey to remake one of the series’ finest entries and to ensure the story of one of the best protagonists stays true to its original, Ubisoft has largely succeeded with Resynced. The experience feels fresh and modern, but also has me feeling the same pirate-y feels that only the original ever could.

It’s not without flaws, though. Some particular bits of Black Flag remain that inject some unwanted repetition; some of the cut content is a little disappointing, and there are some rogue bits of oddness in the new additions, as well as overall balances of features.

But those are not huge complaints, and only apparent with close comparison to the original. Zoom out just a tiny bit, and it’s easy to appreciate what Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is: a fantastically fun version of a brilliant game.

One of the best to ever do it

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Revisiting the story of Edward Kenway, chancer and dreamer turned privateer and then assassin — perhaps the only protagonist who can hold a candle to series legend Ezio Auditore da Firenze — Resynced has largely kept the core narrative, characters, and experience as it was with the original. Which is the right approach, as all were excellent.

Bouncing from Caribbean island to Caribbean island with Kenway and his crew on the Jackdaw is the backdrop for a time-enduring Assassin’s Creed story that still holds up today and makes for a great swashbuckling adventure. There’s a certain satisfying way that the game’s narrative weaves living in the golden age of piracy and core characters within that with its own lore of the enduring Assassin’s vs Templar battle.

Exploring mysterious, overgrown islands searching for hidden treasures or hunting down stashes from messages in a bottle, traversing the high seas in the Jackdaw ship, and taking on huge ships from the Spanish and British navies, and following Kenway’s desire for fortune and experiencing him tracking down age-old secrets is all still fantastically fun and ensures the core experience remains exquisite.

The most tangible and clearest way that this core experience has been elevated is naturally the visuals. I said that Assassin’s Creed Shadows was the best-looking game in the series when I reviewed it last year, but now there's a new kid on the block. Resynced is simply wondrous, verdant, gorgeous, and incredibly detailed in its presentation of the Caribbean, and my eyes can’t get enough of it.

Being a new version of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, it’s still an absolutely fantastic video game and is the same brilliant original under the surface. But “not all treasure is silver and gold, mate”: it’s not just the impressive visual upgrade which makes the remake a success, as there have been loads of improvements, and a few notable changes or omissions which really make up the meat and potatoes of the differences Resynced offers over its original.

A modern assassin

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Each change itself isn’t huge, but when you factor them all in, there’s a huge collection of improvements that paint a bigger, better picture are aesthetic or functional changes, whereas others are much-needed modernizations that bring the game forward a decade and a half.

At their most basic, the changes to menus, controls, and the inventory screen are almost all welcome alterations and bring the game up to speed with the likes of Mirage and Shadows in the modern Assassin’s Creed pantheon. Everything is slick and smooth. The use of the newer Anvil engine and what that allows, such as dynamic weather, a day-night cycle, and so on, is also put to great effect.

In-game minigames like Kenway’s fleet have been overhauled too, and even with the removal of that fun and cartoon-y one in the original, these changes are largely slick and well done. There are also dedicated locations to interact with such things in Kenway’s manor and base of operations on Great Inagua, which has been expanded to include dedicated spots for upgrading the manor or interacting with the fleet.

The island’s upgrades — your Harbourmaster, general store, etc — all have more depth and levels of upgrade to invest in. It’s not as comprehensive as the base-building systems in Shadows, but it’s still very satisfying and drives you to plunder more to unlock the best for your island and ship.

Best Bit

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Taking on a powerful enemy ship with the Jackdaw and planning your attacks while simultaneously navigating the open waters is an absolute thrill — and the sense of satisfaction and relief in pulling off a difficult encounter with a fraction of health left is mighty.

Combat and parkour are both areas with substantial changes as well. Parkour doesn’t look or appear brand new — and once again not as transformative as the change that came after Black Flag with Unity, sadly — but it does genuinely feel smoother and more fluid than before; where there once would have been brief pauses or stutters mid-run, there now aren't.

Combat has definitely taken inspiration from Mirage and largely works as a new style for Kenway. It’s a shame to see some omissions, as Kenway sticks only to cutlass weapons (which sometimes feel a bit messy and button-mashy) but the heavy and light attacks and parries combine to make something more engaging than the parry and finish of the original games. Even so, after a while, it can drag a bit and get repetitive — especially when you’re having to board and take ship after ship after ship to farm upgrade material — and lacks the dynamism of the original at times.

Opening up more of the world has been a success in Resynced, at least. The ability to dive anywhere and swim everywhere in the ocean opens up more areas for discovery and exploration, and the simple addition of a crouch button means that you can explore enemy compounds and warehouse locations rather than just murder your way through them.

A balancing act

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

More substantial changes to content are more mixed, though, and in the face of so many great updates, upgrades, and enhancements, Resynced has to walk a tightrope of new additions and working with — or avoiding — the original source material.

I really enjoy the new endings that some of the best characters in the game get through new side quests, for example — and there are even new lines, scenes, and actions back at Kenway’s headquarters after those too, which is a nice touch.

The new officer recruitment missions are also good fun; as well as offering a tangible benefit for new ship features or weapons, these are some quite good contained missions. However, the pacing sometimes feels a little odd as you successfully recruit the new officer, midway through their story, and even when they seem unconvinced about joining you.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

The most noticeable change to content, however, has been unsuccessful, in my view: entirely removing the modern-day sections is a shame and a missed opportunity. I find myself longing for these bits where you are deep-diving into Desmond’s DNA and scoping out the modern-day Templar offices; the change of pace worked with the original game and played its own robust part in the lore and narrative of the series. While removing tube content was largely welcomed by many and may have seemed like a good idea, in the context of playing the game, it feels a bit of a shame. With Resynced being positioned by Ubisoft as a remake that semi-reinterprets but also modernises and improves parts of the original, it’s a wasted opportunity not to give the modern-day segments the same treatment as other areas of the game and to instead jettison it entirely.

This remake is a blast, and I cannot wait to seek out every corner of the Caribbean and solve every mystery all over again

Some 2013-isms remain in this 2026 game, too. Notably, the AI and enemies are as dumb as ever. Being able to whistle and attract a whole heap of guards to a single stalking location and murder all of them in one big bloody pile is still too easy. And while the tailing missions have been changed to be less punishing, you can now just murder your target, loot the info, and scarper just like any other objective in the game.

Despite the drawbacks, though, as a long-time Assassin’s Creed fan, this remake is a blast, and I cannot wait to seek out every corner of the Caribbean and solve every mystery all over again. Those of us who yearn for more from the stories of the Assassins in every game will be extremely happy, I’d wager, with Resynced’s re-look at one of the best games in the series, with the extra story beats for some of the best characters being such examples.

Despite a few creases here and there that raise the eyebrow, this is a solid remake and a wonderful game, and could offer an interesting insight into Ubisoft’s future approach to its older games, which is very exciting.

Should you play Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced?Play it if...

You want an enhanced and modern version of a classic AC game
Resynced is a fantastic new experience for a classic and top-tier entry in the series and will provide an engaging and satisfying modern way to play the game for new and returning fans.

You’re looking for a fantastic pirate action-adventure game
Complete with the same excellent naval combat from the original, Edward Kenway’s assassin-pirate all-action adventure is still swashbucklingly excellent in Resynced — remake or not — so it's a brilliant game in its own right in 2026.

You’ve enjoyed the modern feel of the most recent AC games
If you’ve liked the overhauls to combat and traversal in particular that the more modern games have offered in the Assassin’s Creed series, then you’ll likely find a lot to love in both ways in Resynced.

Don't play it if...

You really disliked the repetition in earlier games in the series
Sadly, you’ll still be seeing a lot of the same activities and engaging in repeated encounters in Resynced despite all the modernizations and improvements. If these are a big turn-off for you (such as the same fights when boarding enemy ships), then Resynced won’t win you over.

You know you’ll miss the modern-day content
While some hated it, a lot of people loved and were invested in the modern-day sections in Black Flag’s era of Assassin’s Creed games, and to have it totally and utterly removed may well disappoint many fans — especially in the face of so many other improvements in the game.

Accessibility features

Ubisoft has done another great job of offering a whole host of accessibility options in its latest flagship game. You can easily alter difficulty settings with a number of sliders affecting different factors such as stealth, naval combat, and activities, and a number of playstyle assists are also present, such as aim assist, parkour assists, camera settings, and even unlimited oxygen to make swimming in the game easier.

The dedicated accessibility menu is broken down into five categories of accessibility presets: Motor (affecting number of actions or precision and timing), Motion & Camera (to reduce motion and camera effects like screen shake), Colors (text colors and so on, but also setting for Red-Green color blindness and Blue-Yellow color blindness), Vision (for changes to the HUD, and subtitles etc), and Hearing (volume, speaker names, etc). All offer substantial options, and accessibility needs are very well served indeed.

How I reviewed Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced

I played nearly 30 hours (and counting) of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced on a PS5 Pro teamed with an Acer X32QFS gaming monitor and SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni headset for this review. I used a standard DualSense Wireless controller, and I also spent many hours playing the game on my PlayStation Portal.

I tested the game thoroughly in all its graphics modes and found that the balanced mode (offering high graphical fidelity and a targeted 40 frames per second) was by far the most enjoyable and my personal preference.

Having followed the Assassin’s Creed series for years and years, and playing a whole heap of them straight for a year a short while ago, I am very familiar with the games and what makes a good one, a great one, and a less good one, so I am well placed to cast an opinion over Resynced.

First reviewed July 2026

• Ultrahuman hits Ring Pro production problems
• Kickstarter backers are left wondering when they'll get their ring
• August 10 is the new expected date but it's far from guaranteed

Ultrahuman is no stranger to producing some of the best smart rings, but not even that could protect them from the outpouring of disappointment and frustration that came its way after informing Ring Pro Kickstarter backers that shipments were being delayed yet again.

Customers took to Reddit to share their annoyance after u/enzolecorbeau started a thread by sharing a screenshot of the official Ultrahuman message. In it, Ultrahuman states that shipments were now "expected to begin from August 10 onwards".

Kickstarter backers were expecting to receive their orders in June, and this latest delay isn't the first. A single delay is one thing, but now it has happened several times, backers are starting to get vocal about the continued delays to the fitness tracker.

One Reddit user was annoyed that the unit had been sent to "influencers" and not to "people who paid money". Others report that they've requested cancelations but without success.

It's not all negative, though, with one Reddit user hoping the delay is down to the battery "because that would mean they may actually be looking to improve it."

(Image credit: enzolecorbeau)

Ultrahuman doesn't mention the battery but instead attributes the delays to issues experienced during the scaling of production. Ultrahuman says they are "taking extra care to ensure every Ring PRO meets the quality and experience standards we've set for it."

Their commitment to quality is no bad thing. They go on: "Each ring is individually crafted with a high level of precision and care – from the finishing to the final quality checks – and this process is taking slightly longer than originally anticipated."

Ultrahuman has always delivered before

Ultrahuman ran Kickstarter campaigns for both their Ring and Ring Air devices and faithfully fulfilled orders of both.

(Image credit: Ultrahuman)

In reality, crowdfunded projects are often subject to delays. For Ultrahuman, the challenge of manufacturing a titanium unibody with a cutaway safety feature en masse is no doubt contributing to the delays — the last thing Ultrahuman will want is to ship a ring with issues, especially as smart ring problems can prove dangerous.

Customers are more likely to forgive the brand for a delayed shipment than they are for receiving a device with issues. A botched product release could damage customer trust and mean the end of the wearables brand.

None of this will appease the community of people who were expecting to receive their ring back in June and are still left waiting. Only time will tell when Ultrahuman will start fulfilling these orders.

We've contacted Ultrahuman and will update this story when we hear back.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus blocks malware, ransomware, and phishing for $19.99 a year without slowing your PC down.

The post This Popular Antivirus is on Sale for $19.99 appeared first on TechRepublic.

• ExpressVPN has grown to 214 'distinct, app-selectable server locations'
• The 214-location count across 113 countries does not mean 214 cities
• ExpressVPN now covers around 196 cities, up from 189

ExpressVPN has rolled out the biggest network in its history, expanding to 214 distinct, app-selectable server locations across 113 countries.

It's a significant step up for a provider TechRadar last clocked at 189 locations, and it arrives as the fight to top our best VPN list increasingly turns on where you can connect, not how many servers hide behind the app.

The fresh additions reach places the network had not touched before, including Nuuk in Greenland, Lagos in Nigeria, Doha in Qatar, Valencia in Spain, and Manchester in the UK. The move builds on ExpressVPN's rollout to all 50 US states earlier this year, bringing that same local-first approach to the wider world map.

It's worth noting, however, that what the provider refers to as a "server location" is a connection option in the app, rather than a guaranteed unique city. For example, ExpressVPN's UK entries bundle multiple London-area spots that each count separately toward the total.

If you strip those duplicates out, the real coverage is narrower. By TechRadar's own tracking, ExpressVPN now reaches roughly 196 cities, up from 189. It's a definite upgrade, but it still trails NordVPN, which covers around 224 cities and leads on country count, too.

A bigger, more local network

(Image credit: EpressVPN)

ExpressVPN is pitching this as a local-first expansion rather than a raw server-count boast. The new connection points span Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and North America, while established markets have been deepened rather than simply widened.

The UK line-up now runs from Docklands and Tottenham to Manchester and the Midlands, Australia stretches from Adelaide to Woolloomooloo, and Japan covers Osaka, Shibuya, Tokyo, and Yokohama.

More nearby options can cut latency, give you a backup when a route is busy, and let you match a specific city, state, or region to whatever you are doing, from streaming and gaming to banking or working while travelling.

Every new location runs on ExpressVPN's RAM-only TrustedServer tech, which wipes data on each reboot, alongside its no-logs policy and its record of independent audits.

How to switch to the new locations

Getting to the new spots is simple. Update to the latest version of the ExpressVPN app, open the location picker, and browse the expanded country and city list.

If you would rather not choose, Smart Location will pick the fastest option for you automatically, based on speed, latency, and distance.

You can preview the full network on ExpressVPN's server locations page before you connect. And if precise city-level control is what you are after, it is worth checking if the list covers the exact places you need, rather than trusting the headline figure alone.

The teams that recover best from incidents are not always the ones with the fastest ‘in-the-moment’ responders. It’s those that know how to learn and grow stronger once the immediate pressure has passed.

In most organizations, that learning is still too informal and risky: passed between colleagues, buried in chat threads, or carried only by the people who happened to be there.

Recent research found that, while all respondents agreed post-incident learning needs to improve, only 48% said their organization turns incidents into structured improvement cycles. In other words, the majority of organizations at risk from ill-managed events turning into repeat critical incidents.

More than just technical disruptions, major incidents are business events with financial and reputational consequences. Faster incident recovery creates competitive advantage.

The post-incident review cannot remain an optional team habit spread by happenstance. It should be a defined operational policy within a no-blame culture of investigation and improvement, linked to business outcomes.

Post-incident reviews

The strongest post-incident reviews do more than document what went wrong. Reviews should create a shared account of what happened, what decisions were made, what signals were missed, what worked under pressure, and what needs to change.

The value of the process lies in building a coherent narrative and keeping the review blameless so that teams can understand how failure happened without reducing it to individual fault.

That is how institutional memory is built. Not through folklore passed from person to person, but through repeatable disciplines: consistently reviewing incidents, capturing evidence, assigning ownership for follow-up, and making lessons visible beyond the people involved.

It’s a continuous learning cycle where each incident becomes an opportunity for better decision making, and consistently stronger operations over time. This becomes even more important as operational environments are only becoming faster and more complex with every technology generation.

Organizations at the sharp edge of operations management are already using AI in operational workflows, but leaders are also pairing AI with human oversight and continuous learning, rather than treating incident management automation as self-sufficient.

As systems become more interconnected, teams need a more structured way to preserve environment context, identify patterns, and apply lessons from one incident to the next.

That last point is critical. The digital enterprise environment has become incredibly complex with architectural sprawl, the shift from monoliths to microservices, from quarterly to continuous deployment, and from on-prem to multi-cloud architectures. There are more services, more dependencies, more deployment events, and more places where something can behave unexpectedly.

All of this stresses resilience and makes the institutional task of learning the ropes more challenging for teams. That’s compounded further by fragmented tooling, the siloed knowledge of ‘folklore’ and ad hoc manual workarounds. Not to mention the AI-specific dependencies layered on top of existing systems.

Integrated operations with learning capabilities unlock resilience

Those with AI-first operations increasingly recognize the importance of systematic learning from operational incidents. Post-incident learning and improvement are key to achieving operational resilience, and for the ‘AI pioneers’, this is an especially urgent requirement.

Many AI outputs, particularly generative AI, are not 100% predictable or controllable. There are still big risks as the technology is yet to fully mature. Platforms will ideally enable such context, learning, and the ability to improve teams and tech environments together.

Codify, write, learn, test, repeat

The practical case is straightforward. If incident learning is left to memory, culture or pure good intentions, it will remain inconsistent. A serious post-incident review policy should define which incidents require review, who participates, what evidence is captured, how actions are tracked, and how lessons are shared across teams.

Those practices turn response into resilience.

Resilient teams are not distinguished only by how they handle failure in the moment. They are distinguished by what they remember afterwards, and by whether they are disciplined enough to make that memory usable the next time systems break.

That skill, plus automation, is making ‘AI pioneers’ manage the complexity and sophistication of their digital operations to maximum advantage.

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The Tower Plus' understated design hides capable internals, but there's still room for improvement when it comes to upgrades.

As heat waves intensify, manufacturers are betting you'll buy the fan with the biggest airflow claims. Our testing shows why that's a mistake that could cost you money.

For the past year, enterprise AI conversations have focused on what the technology can do — build agents, automate workflows, generate content, and transform how work gets done.

But as many organizations move from pilots to enterprise-scale deployment, a different reality is emerging: AI-first approaches can create new complexity when the operational foundation underneath them isn’t designed to support intelligence at scale.

Early pilots often deliver promising results. The challenge comes later — when companies try to scale AI across functions, geographies, and business processes.

That’s when the hidden constraints begin to surface: fragmented data, inconsistent processes, unclear ownership, governance gaps, and environments that become harder to manage and maintain over time.

The issue is rarely the AI itself. More often, it’s the lack of a strong operational foundation underneath it.

The real constraint: a fractured operational core

The pattern is becoming difficult to ignore. Many AI strategies are colliding with the same enterprise realities: disconnected systems, inconsistent data, unclear process ownership, and controls that were never designed for increasingly autonomous technologies.

These challenges become more visible as organizations scale AI.

AI can accelerate decision-making and automate complex work, but it cannot compensate for fragmented operating models or conflicting sources of truth. In many cases, AI simply exposes weaknesses that already existed within the enterprise.

That is why a strong operational core matters more than ever. Whether anchored in ERP software, finance platforms, supply chain systems, enterprise data platforms or broader governance capabilities, AI depends on environments where data, processes, and controls are consistent enough to support trustworthy execution.

AI does not eliminate operational complexity. In many cases, it amplifies it.

Acceleration without alignment creates risk

When organizations move too quickly toward AI-first architectures without strengthening the underlying foundation, the long-term costs can add up quickly.

Systems become harder to scale. Governance becomes harder to enforce. Teams spend more time managing exceptions, validating outputs, and reconciling inconsistent data across platforms.

What starts as speed and flexibility can eventually create operational drag.

ERP: from system of record to system of execution

That is where many AI strategies begin to break down — not because the technology is immature, but because the operating model underneath is not prepared to support it.

And that is where ERP re-enters the conversation.

For years, ERP software has been described primarily as a system of record. In reality, it serves a much broader role. It is where the business runs — where transactions are executed, roles and controls are enforced, workflows are managed, and business rules are applied consistently across the enterprise.

That consistency is not a limitation. It is what makes execution reliable.

As AI becomes embedded into core business processes, organizations need systems capable of turning intelligence into action while maintaining accountability, traceability, and control.

ERP itself is evolving

This does not mean ERP remains unchanged.

Modern ERP platforms are rapidly evolving from transactional systems into intelligent execution platforms that embed AI directly into business processes. Leading organizations are increasingly integrating agents, predictive capabilities, workflow automation, and real-time decision support into their operational environments.

The objective is not to choose between ERP and AI. It is to combine the adaptability of AI with the discipline, governance, and scalability of enterprise platforms.

The future belongs to organizations that can bring both together.

AI and ERP are complementary, not competitive

ERP systems are designed to operate predictably. They help execute processes consistently, enforce controls, and create auditable outcomes across the enterprise.

AI systems are fundamentally different. They learn, adapt, identify patterns, and introduce new forms of interaction, decision support, and automation.

These are not competing models. They are complementary.

AI introduces new layers of interaction, intelligence, orchestration, and productivity. But execution still requires a governed environment. Decisions still need defined processes. Controls must evolve alongside AI-driven workflows. And organizations still need systems capable of translating insight into action.

The greatest value is created when AI and ERP work together—combining the adaptability of AI with the operational discipline, scalability, and governance that enterprise platforms provide.

In that model, AI becomes the intelligence layer. ERP becomes the execution layer.

Together, they create a foundation that allows organizations to scale AI with greater confidence, consistency, and business impact.

Why execution still matters

Without a strong foundation, AI lacks a clear framework for how work should be done or what constraints it must operate within. This becomes especially clear beyond simple use cases.

In finance, AI can identify anomalies or predict cash flow—but acting on those insights requires systems that enforce approvals, maintain audit trails, and support compliance. The same applies across supply chain, procurement, and operations.

Intelligence alone is not enough. Execution and control are what turn that intelligence into outcomes.

Why ERP is becoming more important — not less

ERP provides the operational structure, process discipline, and control framework that helps organizations govern how AI operates across the business. It helps establish consistent data models, embeds business rules and controls, and makes decisions traceable and auditable.

In short, it creates the conditions that allow AI to scale more reliably across the enterprise.

Rather than replacing core enterprise systems, many organizations are pairing AI investments with ERP modernization efforts designed to improve data quality, process consistency, and governance. As AI adoption accelerates, the value of a strong operational foundation is becoming increasingly apparent.

The strategic shift for technology leaders

Many AI strategies still start with tools — what models to deploy, what agents to build, and what use cases to prioritize.

That approach can generate momentum, but not always sustained impact.

A more effective approach starts with outcomes: What decisions matter most? What processes drive value? and What metrics does the organization need to improve?

From there, the focus shifts to how AI supports those outcomes — and what kind of operational environment makes that support reliable.

In most cases, that environment depends on a strong operational ERP core.

The bottom line: AI is ready. Most foundations aren’t.

The organizations that succeed with AI will not necessarily be the ones that deploy the most models, build the most agents, or adopt the newest tools first. They will be the ones that build AI on top of operational foundations designed to support scale, governance, and continuous execution.

AI is moving fast. But without a reliable operational core underneath it, even the most promising AI initiatives can become difficult to sustain.

AI does not eliminate operational complexity—it exposes it.

Organizations with strong foundations can use AI to accelerate performance, improve decision-making, and unlock new sources of value. Those without them often discover that AI scales complexity just as quickly as it scales capability.

Because ultimately, the greatest risk in AI may not be the technology itself. It's trying to scale AI on foundations that were never designed to support it.

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• Ofcom issues £28 million fine to Virgin Media over cancellation worries
• Millions of customers had to jump through hoops to cancel their contracts
• Virgin admitted fault and cooperated, reducing the value of the fine

Ofcom has issued Virgin Media to pay a £28 million fine after an investigation found it repeatedly made it "unreasonabl[y]" difficult for customers to cancel their broadband, TV and phone contracts.

The investigation covered nearly two years between January 1, 2022 and September 11, 2024, making it the largest fine Ofcom has ever imposted under its consumer protection rules.

According to the announcement, millions of customer calls likely faced delayed or were prevented from switching to rival providers – a figure Virgin Media largely disputes, arguing the data was extrapolated from 649 core complaints.

Virgin Media fined for blocking customer cancellations

Ofcom found that Virgin Media deliberately disconnected customers, made excessive and unnecessary transfers between departments, kept customers on hold and forced them to make multiple cancellation requests before action was taken.

These hurdles were likely caused by the company's two-tier retention system – with frontline workers unable to process cancellations, customers have to be transferred to specialist teams – however this applies to a previous customer service setup that has since been improved.

Since the 2022-2024 period, the company has gone on to secure the top spot, receiving half the number of broadband complaints that TalkTalk received in the fourth quarter of 2025 (per Ofcom data). Those record-low complaint levels also mark a major 89% reduction compared with 2023.

"We have completely redesigned our customer services in recent years, addressing the historic shortfalls identified by Ofcom through a number of improvements, and have resolved all formal customer complaints from this period providing redress where appropriate," a Virgin Media spokesperson told us.

Under last year's turnaround plan, the company reduced the number of call transfers by more than 1.3 in 2025.

"Today, we are sending a clear message that any provider who wilfully acts against the interests of their customers will pay a heavy price," Group Director for Infrastructure and Connectivity Natalie Black said. "And by introducing the One Touch Switch Process, we‘ve put in place further safeguards to prevent this from happening again."

Virgin Media admitted fault and cooperated with Ofcom, granting it access to a 30% discount on the fine. The company also noted that all formal complaints from this period have since been resolved.

It is the second fine it's received within 12 months, having received a £23.8 million hit in December 2025 for "putting vulnerable customers at risk" during its landline migration program.

For the last few years, most AI infrastructure conversations revolved around the massive scale of AI training.

The AI training factories that leading AI companies have been building to develop frontier models and lead the AI race are nothing short of impressive: hundreds of thousands of GPUs, power consumption comparable to a medium city, and tens of petabits per second to scale training across multiple campuses.

But, as AI adoption accelerates and its applications expand, a larger infrastructure challenge is set to grab the spotlight. The new, real, and sustained pressure on networks is coming from the demand side of AI: inference.

Inference is what happens every time someone asks a chatbot a question, drops a file into a productivity tool for analysis, or relies on an AI-generated summary inside their inbox or search results. On a per-query basis, the traffic generated is lightweight, nothing comparable with a massive training run.

Now multiply that by the number of people interacting with AI across the globe – and consider that each time more it involves video, images, and supporting files – and you can see where the next major network demand driver is emerging.

With inference, the growth curve is steeper, global, and widely distributed, and it is now reshaping how data center connectivity is designed and the broader network ecosystem that connects cloud regions, metros and continents.

The inference inflection point

Even more powerful than users actively embracing AI faster than any technology before is the compound effect of AI features being injected into platforms that already serve billions.

Just take a look at your technology ecosystem and no doubt you’ve got AI capabilities now embedded in your search engine, email, office software, maps, social feeds and your smartphone. Embedding AI into those products is ensuring instant, global access and inevitable overwhelming usage.

The result is staggering growth in inference volumes. Take Google, for example, which reported the number of AI tokens it processes monthly increased 50 times year over year in early 2025… and then doubled it again just two months later and continues to grow at breathtaking pace, as seen on the 60 percent quarter-over-quarter token growth announced on April 2026.

Efficiency gains at the hardware and algorithmic level help attenuate the demand for additional resources, but nowhere near all of it. Delivering this increased inference volume requires the accelerated deployment of new GPU capacity and in a quickly growing number of inference data centers distributed across more geographies.

That geographic distribution is the first reason inference is not just a compute story but, at its heart, a networking story.

From text to video: multimodal models’ impact on the network

Until recently, AI's contribution to overall internet traffic has been limited. A text prompt and a text response amount to a few kilobytes — negligible next to a single minute of video streaming.

That’s changing quickly.

Multimodal models analyze and generate images, audio, video and 3D content. A user uploading a short HD video clip for analysis or editing pushes several megabytes upstream in seconds.

Researchers, students, and workers are increasingly pumping collections of documents into models to summarize key findings and generate detailed reports. Cloud-based video analytics that process camera feeds to provide insights and alerts are finding their way into viable business models.

Multiply those interactions by hundreds of millions to billions of users and inference traffic becomes a major driver of distributed and pervasive traffic flows.

Reasoning models add a second stressor. Rather than producing an instant response, they break problems into multiple internal steps, often pulling in supporting information in real time. A single user-visible answer can sit on top of dozens of background retrievals, sending megabytes of data between models, storage systems and external sources, much of it crossing data center boundaries.

And more pressure on the network comes from context window expansion. Frontier models can now ingest enormous prompts: think entire document sets, conversation histories, retrieved knowledge bases and more. Retrieval-augmented generation has become a widely adopted technique for many enterprise AI applications, and it involves injecting contextual knowledge into the model prompt on every query.

All told, these trends mean inference is no longer a lightweight workload from a network perspective. It is becoming a dominant driver of traffic growth, both between data centers and between users and the AI infrastructure.

How the DCI focus needs to shift

AI models are now distributed across regions, and usage signals and reinforced learning feedback must flow back to the centralized intelligence.

Multi-step and disaggregated inference workflows are increasingly spanning sites with complementary capabilities; think one for prefill focused on high-compute, large context processing, another for decode centered around low-latency token generation and memory and cache efficiency.

And sovereign AI requirements are pushing workloads into specific jurisdictions, multiplying the number of facilities that need to be tied together with high capacity and reliability.

Typical inference DCI links already operate at multiple terabits per second per route. The number of routes is growing alongside the capacity of each one, driven by more resilient and diversified interconnect topologies combined with a surge in the volume and geographic distributions of emerging inference-driven AI data centers.

Interconnecting inference data centers is just one side of the equation. The other involves connecting users, agents, things, and organizations to run their inference workloads across this meshed infrastructure.

Multicloud onramps are evolving to enable the movement of large enterprise datasets across AI platforms. More symmetric broadband access and scalable aggregation will be needed support widespread cameras to upload video for analysis on the AI cloud. The entire networking ecosystem needs to adapt.

So how do network operators keep up with demand and service providers take advantage of these trends?

Connecting the Dots – or Tokens

Network operators are already responding with planning centered on scalability, flexibility, efficiency, and security. To maximize capacity of every fiber pair—a resource that has never been more valuable and sought-after—they are adopting coherent optical platforms and systems capable of 1.6 Tb/s per wavelength.

Lumen Technologies, for example, is one such network provider that is building for tomorrow. It’s expanding its network at incredible speed, and to do so is leveraging a high-bandwidth 1.6 Tb/s coherent transceiver.

Additionally, the variable and diversified nature of inference traffic patterns make static networks less than ideal. Many operators are thus turning to AI-assisted multilayer network control to shift capacity and optimize performance in near real time.

Again, Lumen is a prime example of this; by leveraging a rich control suite the provider is gaining comprehensive visibility and maximizing usage and performance of its fiber assets from one point of control.

And to tie it all off, as inference traffic often includes sensitive data, network operators are baking in encryption at the optical layer within any new DCI deployment.

Inference workloads are evolving faster than any forecasting model can keep up. The networks best positioned for the next five years are the ones designed to scale in capacity, reach and intelligence without requiring major upgrades each time the workload spikes.

Training defined AI's first wave of infrastructure buildout. Inference is shaping its second – one much more globally distributed and intricate that will transform the networking landscape.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

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Fan technology has made huge leaps in recent years, with more powerful and quieter motors, misting attachments, and AI-powered person-tracking all promising to keep you extra cool when the weather warms up. But which fans actually deliver, and actually keep you feeling refreshed on sticky summer days?

We test dozens of new fans every year on TechRadar, and to help you pick the best one for you, I've rounded up the five that have really impressed me over the first half of this year, from brands including Shark, Dyson, and Dreo.

Dyson HushJet Mini CoolFutureFutureFutureFutureFuture

Release date: April 2026

Score: 5/5

It's a lot pricier than your average handheld fan, but the Dyson HushJet Mini Cool is also a lot more powerful, and unlike flimsy plastic devices, it's built to keep you cool for many summers to come. Despite its small size, the HushJet Mini really packs a punch, even on its lowest setting, and the highest options feel like a cold hairdryer blowing in your face. It's comfortable to hold, can stand on its end for use as a desk fan, and comes with a strap that lets you wear it around your neck. You can twist the angled nozzle to aim the airflow directly at your face and neck for quick relief on sweaty days.

Dyson claims battery life of up to six hours, but in my tests it continued running for almost exactly six and a half, which is impressive for such a compact device that shifts a lot of air even on its lowest setting. It's not quite as quiet as the Shark ChillPill below, despite Dyson's HushJet nozzle, but that's understandable considering it's basically a portable tornado.

Read our full review

Shark ChillPillFuture / Becca CaddyFuture / Becca CaddyFuture / Becca CaddyFuture / Becca CaddyFuture / Becca Caddy

Release date: March 2026

Score: 4.5/5

Another excellent handheld fan, the Shark ChillPill has a unique twisting design that lets you place it on a desk and angle the airflow at your face, plus three different cooling attachments: a regular fan, a misting fan (with a small reservoir for water), and a metal cooling plate that you can press against pulse points. The misting feature is my personal favorite, with continual and intermittent options — the spray is fine enough to evaporate on contact so it won't make your hair and clothes wet.

It loses half a star compared to the Dyson fan due to its higher price tag and less powerful motor — the ChillPill can reach up to 25,000rpm, while the HushJet Mini Cool can reach 65,000rpm — but the Shark is quieter. During my tests it ranged from 46dB on its lowest setting through to 67dB on the highest, making it a more discreet option in public.

Read our full review

MeacoFan Sefte Pro 10in Table Air CirculatorFuture / Becca CaddyFuture / Becca CaddyFuture / Becca CaddyFuture / Becca CaddyFuture / Becca Caddy

Release date: May 2026

Score: 4.5/5

Air circulators are designed to move a large volume of air around a room rather than direct a focused stream in your direction, and the 10-inch version of the MecoFan Sefte Pro does this extremely well. You can run it directly from the mains, or from its rechargeable battery, so you can carry it around the house with you. This works particularly well when paired with the Sefte Pro's Eco mode, which adjusts the air circulator's power depending on the temperature.

I used the MeacoFan Sefte Pro during the last heatwave, and it was a real life-saver at night. Its sleep mode is almost silent, and its remote control means you don't need to get out of bed to activate it, and it's also available as a pedestal fan if you prefer. The biggest drawback is that it's not currently available outside Europe.

Read our full review

Dreo Smart Misting Fan 516SFutureFutureFutureFutureFuture

Released April 2026

Score: 4/5

The Dreo Smart Misting Fan 516S is another fan that keeps you extra cool with a super-fine spray of water, and our reviewer Harry Padoan said that "it added a nice degree of coolness without making any mess or feeling too intense". The 1.3-liter tank is large enough to keep misting for hours on end, and it's easy to switch to fan-only mode once you've had enough.

It's very reasonably priced too, coming in at $99.99 / £99.99 (about AU$140). That's not bad at all for a misting fan with app controls, and compatibility with both Amazon Alexa and Google Home, so you can operate it using voice commands.

Its lowest mode is quiet enough to avoid disturbing your sleep, though Harry found the turbo option loud enough to break his concentration, so it's best reserved for exceptionally sticky days when you want to just slump on a chair and do nothing.

Read our full review

Dyson Find+Follow Purifier Cool FutureFutureFutureFutureFuture

Release date: June 2026:

Score: 4.5/5

As you can guess from the name, this fan's key selling point is its ability to detect motion and follow you around the room, so you're never beyond range of its refreshing jet of air, even when you're doing chores, working out, or pottering about the kitchen — all of which are usually extremely unpleasant in hot weather. Paired with its extra-wide range of motion, this could make it the only fan you need.

It has Dyson's signature bladeless design, and our reviewer John McCann said it "delivers smooth air flow that feels like a natural breeze moving through your home, rather than the harsh buffeting you get from some other propeller and tower fans." It's extremely quiet at night (dropping to as low as 20dB), but delivers real cooling power as well.

It's the most expensive fan in this roundup (indeed, it's one of the priciest fan/air purifier combos on the market) but it's hard to argue with its sheer performance. If you've got the budget to spare, it's packed with premium features that really work. I only wish it offered vertical oscillation as well as horizontal.

Read our full review